


Walk Through Fire

by Wistful



Category: RWBY
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Adam Taurus Being an Asshole, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Demon Deals, Demon Summoning, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Past Abuse, Major Character Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Blake Belladonna/Adam Taurus, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wistful/pseuds/Wistful
Summary: Yang didn't PLAN on going to Hell. It just sort of... happened. Fate is funny like that. Unpredictable. Kind of like the girl she's been ordered to target.But Hell seems to have forgotten that Yang can be unpredictable, too.[Bumbleby Demon/Human AU. In which Yang gets a new lease on life, Blake has a bad day, and Adam... well, Adam just sucks.]
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 7
Kudos: 39





	1. Crash And Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you think wrecking your bike sucks, just wait until you see what's waiting for you on the other side! 
> 
> OR:
> 
> In which Yang first meets the pavement, and then the Devil Herself: the life, the times.

The headline read **Fatal South Bend Motorcycle Accident Claims One.**

Yang didn't remember the crash, or what it felt like. She supposed, in the end, that that was the last real mercy she'd been permitted. 

The driving conditions had been perfect when she'd left. Warm, clear skies, light breeze. By all accounts, it should have been the same as a thousand other nights she'd spent idly running the back roads. It was just one of those freak things, an equation that ultimately totaled against her: loose gravel plus runaway deer equals _Whoops, where did the ground go?_ The last thing she remembered was the absurd sensation of being airborne, seeing the sky above her despite her white-knuckled grip on the handlebars, and thinking, _Ah, shit, this is gonna hurt,_ and then--

Nothing. 

Darkness so deep that she couldn't see her hand in front of her face, and no ground beneath her feet. If she was able to move, she certainly couldn't tell. Talking—singing— _screaming_ produced no echo, and pinching her arm in an effort to wake herself caused no sensation at all. She wasn't sure how long she remained that way, suspended in the void—only that it felt like forever, and eventually, inevitably, she ran out of ways to entertain herself. 

And _that_ was when the darkness spoke to her.

_Yang Xiao-Long._

The voice—or voices, a multitude layered one over another—seemed to come from all around her, undefinable, resonating from the shadows and thrumming in her bones. Somehow, there was a familiarity buried within the tangle of voices that wrenched a shudder from her. 

"That's the name." Speaking out loud had become boring fast. Yang had been silent for so long that her voice didn't feel like her own, as disembodied as the one addressing her. "Don't wear it out." 

_You certainly have lived a life, haven't you?_

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to play coy and be all, like, 'Oh, no, actually I was planning on giving up my life of sin and joining the convent, but you happened to beat me to it'?" At least the sarcasm still came easily. She had nothing better to do. Might as well pick a fight. 

The answering chuckle rumbled somewhere in her sternum. _Funny you should bring that up._

"What." Yang made a face that she knew would have been absolutely scathing, had she been able to see. "Becoming a nun?"

_Sin._

Something changed. Yang was _cold,_ suddenly, and though she continued to be unable to see herself, a silhouette loomed just out of arm's reach. The mystery of the familiar tone in the voice was shattered, abruptly—she recognized the broad shoulders, the easy lean in the posture—and immediately turned her gaze away. Somewhere, she was sure, her father still lived, and presumably mourned. She couldn't bear the idea of being addressed by some spooky caricature of him. 

_"You were no stranger to sin, were you, Yang?"_ Not-Taiyang's voice made her chest ache. _"Envy, lust, pride. Wrath. Wrath was certainly a hit with you, even when you were small—remember your first haircut?"_

"Don't!" The words were out before she could stop them, head snapping up to glare at the shadowy mockery of her father: "Don't act like you were there. I don't know what you are, but you're not him, so quit pretending to be!"

The silhouette cocked its head, considered her briefly, and proceeded to change shape. 

_"Hey, kid, c'mon."_ A voice roughened by years of smoke and alcohol abuse. _"Everybody sins eventually. It's not that big of a deal. Just gotta own up to it, is all."_ It knew exactly what his slouch looked like, but Yang knew better: Qrow didn't exactly advocate for bragging about one's failings. He, himself, tended to sweep them under the carpet. _"You know you can tell me anything, firecracker. Remember? Like how you used to tell me how jealous you got when your dad played more with Ruby on the bad days?"_

"I can tell _my uncle_ anything." Yang shifted, experimentally, trying to get closer. She remembered Qrow going to the back yard with her, teaching her to spar on the days that Tai hadn't even been able to get out of bed. She knew exactly what it felt like to land a hit on him. She wondered if this thing knew how to mimic _that._ If she was even moving at all, though, the Qrow silhouette moved in kind, constantly keeping an even distance between them. "... But you're not him," she continued, finally stopping. "And I never told you that."

The Qrow-shape sighed—long and ragged, like she'd disappointed it—and then changed again.

Something in Yang's chest immediately cracked. 

_"I miss my sister."_ It had Ruby's sad voice down to an exact science: the clipped speech, the way she muted a voice that bordered on straight-up _shrill_ when she was excited. Like the verbal equivalent of a kicked puppy. _"I wasn't ready to see you go, but your pride told you it was safe to drive that fast by yourself, right? You knew it wasn't safe, because you_ never _drove like that when you gave me a ride, but... I guess... you thought you were invinci--"_

Yang screamed. 

Screamed until she could imagine echoes, until muscle memory reminded her what it was like to not be able to breathe—which was a cosmic joke, since she _couldn't_ breathe, didn't need to in this place. She tried—and failed—to thrash closer to the shape in the darkness, the thing pretending to be Ruby, imagined shaking it until it fell to pieces for _daring_ to taunt her with her sister. She would make it _hurt,_ or maybe she'd die again for the effort: either way, it would be better than this. 

She stopped, eventually. Futility has a way of wearing you down. 

It was only then that she realized that the figure in the gloom didn't look like Ruby anymore. 

_My, my. Look at you._ A woman's voice. She didn't recognize it, and found that was more of a comfort than it ought to have been. _Barely even cold, and already trying to do me harm. Such fire._ Yang barely registered the motion in the dark, still reeling from the revelation that all this time, she'd been dead for, what—less than an hour? Cool fingers caught her under the chin and lifted her face, and she stiffened, lips skinning back into a defiant snarl. She couldn't make out the details of the face that hung above hers, but the eyes gleamed even in the dark, glowing like an animal's caught in headlights: blood red. Cunning. Upturned in a smile. 

_There's some use to be had, there, I think... so what shall I do with you, Yang?_

"Go to Hell," she hissed, and the figure laughed and released her, turning and gliding away into the dark. 

_Darling, I thought it should have been obvious by now._

White light.

White heat.

The shift from dark to light was so sudden that she couldn't see, but she could _feel_ it: the way her near-frozen limbs were suddenly limned in searing heat, the cracking, the blistering. Every inch of her burned. Another scream started to bubble up in her chest, but just before it broke free--

_You're already there._

**______________________________________________________**

Time didn't pass right in Hell, but then again, _nothing_ in Hell was right. Yang couldn't put her finger on _when,_ exactly, she had changed—only that it had happened, somewhere in between the agony and the unreality. Wings, horns, an honest-to-God _tail,_ barb-tipped like some kind of old-timey cartoon devil. Scales and claws and fangs. Once, early on, she'd had enough lack of self-preservation to let herself get angry at her tormentors, and she'd _sworn_ her hair had caught fire, but that didn't make any sense... but then again, not much did, down below.

She supposed this was why she didn't question it, much, when she was called to the Lady's side. Another new torment. More shapeshifting, probably. She was already bracing to see Ruby again when she was spoken to. Maybe this time it wouldn't be so hard.

_There's work for you to do._

Yang didn't respond right away. A new form of deception, perhaps. But the silence stretched between them, and curiosity—or dread, she couldn't quite place it—won out. Yang slowly inclined her head, gritting her teeth throughout the show of deference. "What do you need?" 

Her reluctance wasn't lost on the Lady, who chuckled. _Oh, Yang. You've improved,_ she crooned, just to see the shudder of frustration ripple through Yang's wings, tense against her back. _A mortal has need of someone with your... talents. Vengeance, as it were. Dealing punishment. You know all about that, don't you, Yang?_

Yang pressed her lips tight together, bit her tongue against the words that wanted to come out. Finally, stiffly: "Of course. What do I need to do?" 

_Go to him._ She'd seen portals to the mortal plane before, but never this close: the sting of ozone and brimstone filled her lungs as it appeared behind the Lady, swirling red and black around her. _Follow his instructions. Aid him as necessary. He isn't our target... for now. But, assuming you succeed, you'll be paying him a visit again_ very _soon. Our deals are all about give and take, after all._

It took everything in Yang's power to keep the steel in her spine as she passed the Lady. A casual hand on her shoulder nearly brought her to her knees. As it was, her wings trembled, still too new to her to be controlled properly. She stared, frozen, into the swirling void of the portal. 

_One more thing, Yang..._

"Yes?"

_Do not fail me._

Yang nodded, and the moment that the Lady released her, she fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration is a fickle thing. No muse for this concept throughout most of the hiatus, and now, about a week out from the show resuming, boom: off we go. I'm not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth, so we'll roll with it. 
> 
> The goal, tentatively, is to update Fridays. (We'll see if that sticks, though. My job is not considerate of posting schedules, alas.)
> 
> Happy Halloween! xo


	2. Boy Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting summoned isn't NEARLY as fun as Yang was hoping it would be. 
> 
> Neither is dealing with someone like Adam.

She would have liked to enjoy being topside again, even for just five minutes: feeling the sun on her face (though it was setting already), breathing air that didn't burn her chest and reek of sulfur. Seeing people walking around casually, calmly—not being bent into shapes no body should ever take, or being pulled apart and crudely stuck back together again. _Normal_ people, doing normal people things, in the normal world. 

But she couldn't, because the portal deposited her on the roof of some dingy apartment building, nearly in the lap of possibly the worst example of Walking Testosterone she'd _ever_ met—denizens of Hell included. He'd taken one look at her and started running his mouth as soon as she'd appeared. "You're a girl. I was expecting-- I summoned for _Wrath._ Why are you a girl?" He'd scarcely even paused for breath, too bent on complaining about Hell's _obvious_ fuckup. She might have been impressed if his particular tangent hadn't been so _goddamn annoying._ Failing that, she might have just walked away—but a summoning sigil of what looked suspiciously like sidewalk chalk had her hemmed in on all sides. Nothing to do but stand around and get ranted at, then.

His name was Adam Taurus, and he was a massive douche. 

As it turned out, summoning demons to carry out his dirty work was his modus operandi, and one that he hadn't had much success with in the past. So _obviously,_ Adam claimed, sending a chick was Hell's way of getting back at him for airing his past grievances. Yang had zoned out around this point, but had gotten the sense that he'd felt his past summonings had proven to be "too weak" and therefore ineffective. He wanted someone who could leave a lasting impression, apparently. Yang nearly interjected, at this point, that not a single person she'd met in life had _ever_ forgotten who she was, but he didn't have the kind of face that screamed _I enjoy humor._ (Actually, he didn't have much of a face to speak of: half of it was gnarled with scar tissue, and he wore shades despite twilight setting in. Hell's doing, maybe? She might have asked, except he kept _talking.)_

Eventually, he stopped bitching about his failed attempts, and Yang seized the opportunity to speak.

"Okay, look. What do you _need_ me for? It's been almost twenty minutes, and the meter is running, here, dude." A rough estimate, time-wise, but probably not an inaccurate one. Adam looked displeased that she'd interrupted his tirade; he must have only stopped to catch his breath. Tough luck. Yang had been given the impression she was supposed to be _actually_ working, not playing psychologist to some Satanist whackjob. 

"There's a girl." His voice had this growling quality to it that was, honestly, _really_ unfortunate when paired with his face. Yang pursed her lips and managed—somehow—not to roll her eyes, though it was a near thing.

"Of course there is. And?" 

"I need her brought to me. Alive."

 _Sketchy,_ Yang thought. "Why?"

"I didn't summon you to ask questions."

"And I didn't get summoned to listen to you pop off about how Hell's been failing you lately, either, but that sure is what happened, so unless you want me to relay that whole spiel of yours to the boss, answer the damned question." 

Adam looked as though he might argue, but then thought better of it. "She and I have... unfinished business. If being a coward were an art form, she'd be a savant. I've been trying to track her down for months and she's avoided me all this time, even after I got Hell involved. She needs to answer for what she did to me. To us."

A sick feeling began to kindle in the pit of Yang's stomach. "So you asked for a Wrath demon..."

"To teach her a lesson before she's brought to me." He looked _worse_ when he smiled. Yang didn't even think that was possible. "Now you're catching on."

 _So you want me to catch your ex and beat the shit out of her so you can keep your hands clean._ Yang's jaw clenched against the words: the memory of the Lady's hand on her shoulder burned, rooted her in place. She wondered what would happen if she just turned on him right here, right now, and flung him over the side of the building. Probably nothing good. The Lady had been pretty explicit about _failure._ "How do you expect me to even find her? You said everyone else so far hasn't managed." 

Adam's mouth twisted sourly. "She's been Marked. It— _calls_ to demons. It's not finding her that's the issue." He turned to her, lifting his shades for the first time. His one good eye burned into hers; the ruined side of his face was a different matter, cloudy eye staring sightlessly past her. "It's the _bringing her here_ that's been a problem. Don't underestimate her. She may be a coward, but she's too damned smart for her own good. Even cowards will fight when they're cornered." The shades dropped back into place, and he scuffed his foot through the edge of the chalk circle, freeing her. "Make her pay for it."

"You got it, edgelord." Adam swung back around to look at her, mouth opening, and Yang held a hand up to silence him. "Nope. Shut. Time's a-wasting. What's her name?" 

He looked very much like he wanted to hit her—matter of fact, his fists were clenched at his sides—but he tamped it back down with visible effort. "... Blake Belladonna." 

"Cool name." Yang stepped out onto the roof, away from the sigil, and felt the air around her drop by several degrees. A familiar portal flared into existence on her left. _Handy,_ she thought. "So I'll see you in five to ten business days, weather permitting." 

Adam looked, once again, like he was contemplating hitting her. Yang flashed him a smile that didn't reach her eyes. _I'd_ love _to see you try._

"It's a _joke,_ asshole, keep your shirt on. You'll see me when you see me, and if you can't be patient, then I imagine you'll answer for that, considering your track record with us so far." Adam stiffened at that, just a little. _Yeah, that's right—be afraid,_ she thought sourly. _Your time is coming._ Yang lofted a hand in his direction as she stepped into the portal. "Don't wait up! Byeeee."

Darkness and the smell of brimstone folded in around her.

 _Blake Belladonna,_ Yang thought, _your taste in men SUCKS._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Punch Adam Taurus Squad is still a thing, right? Can we bring that back yet?
> 
> Also, SMASH THAT LIKE (Kudos? idk I am still New To Ao3™) IF YOU'RE EXCITED FOR SEASON 8, YEAH BUDDY. One more sleep! 
> 
> xo


	3. A Rainy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yang finally meets a girl -- or more precisely, THE girl -- and immediately critiques her taste in men, and also (silently) in reading material.
> 
> What she does NOT expect is to be critiqued right back.

When she stepped out of the portal again, it was absolutely _pouring._ Yang figured this was the universe's way of expressing its displeasure that she was effectively kidnapping and/or beating on someone who maybe-probably did not deserve it. While not an unfair judgment, Yang also did not relish the idea of another Hell-millennia of torture: the memory of the Lady's hand on her shoulder still sent a shiver rippling down her spine. 

After getting past the initial shock of getting drenched in her first earthly downpour in years—wings folded awkwardly above her head in an attempt to form a makeshift umbrella—Yang assessed her surroundings. Another rooftop. Greeeeat. She peeked over the edge and found herself confronted with an eight-story drop to a busy street. Ugh, okay then, time to find some stairs--

There was... something. A sort of _tug_ in her chest. Yang didn't physically move, but her breath caught, all the same. She peered down to the street again. Rain sluiced off umbrellas and caught streetlights, tinging everything amber, but that umbrella near the end of the street... 

Bright purple light rippled around the figure underneath, lurid and unnatural in the gloom of a rainy late afternoon. If anybody around her noticed, they certainly weren't showing it. Yang leaned her arms on the parapet, watching as Blake—it _had_ to be Blake; every fiber of Yang's being was screaming for her to follow—disappeared around the corner. 

_Gotcha,_ Yang thought.

Okay, no time for stairs, then. Yang circled toward the next corner, peering down in hopes of a fire escape. No such luck. The alleyway was pretty empty, though, as alleys went. She gave her wings an experimental flap (truth be told, she'd never gotten to _fly_ with them before), and then—reasoning that she wouldn't die; she was already dead, after all—vaulted the wall and dropped to the ground below.

Her descent was... ungainly, to say the least, and peppered with a lot of swearing, but apart from a graceless stumble against a nearby dumpster, she managed to land without crashing. Yang stood up straight, shaking her sodden hair out of her face, and took stock of her situation for a moment. Okay. No umbrella in the pouring rain, dressed head to toe in biker gear with no motorbike in sight—that was one thing. Strolling out of an alley looking like she'd escaped from the set of _Hellboy_ was entirely another. Then again—nobody had been gawking at Blake, who appeared to be effectively glowing in the dark like some weird, bipedal firefly. 

Only one way to find out, she supposed.

Yang stepped out of the alley, casually scraping her hair back into a ponytail as she did so (it was weird, the details that Hell had kept; she'd died with a hair tie around her wrist, for example, and it had remained there all this time), and gave her wings a purposefully casual stretch. 

Someone barged past her and passed through her left wing without flinching.

Well. That settled that. 

The _tug_ in her chest—which had grown ever more insistent as she figured out how to get off the roof—led her down the street and around the corner. Yang tried to focus on being casual; she sensed that opportunities to act like a normal person were going to be _very_ rare from now on. Head down, hands in her pockets, wings tucked against her back, _nothing to see here, folks..._ So engrossed was she in the charade, in fact, that she overshot, and had to stop in the middle of the sidewalk and backtrack as instinct screamed for her to _TURN AROUND, GO BACK._ She found herself standing outside an unassuming storefront—one of those little hole-in-the-wall sort of corner stores, part laundromat, part café, part... whatever the hell else the owners felt like selling. It wasn't big; not even a chain she recognized. It made for a good place to hide out, Yang supposed. 

Her boots squeaked on the tile when she let herself in. 

_Back table,_ her instincts whispered, _in the corner._ Blake had had enough time to order herself a mug of something and crack open a book. It was weird: she didn't _glow_ in here, under the fluorescents. Maybe she only did it in the dark. Yang wrung some of the rainwater out of her ponytail and threw every ounce of nonchalance she could into approaching her table and pulling out the unoccupied seat.

"You know..." Yang cocked her head, trying to get a better look at the face half-hidden by the novel. A _steamy romance novel,_ too, at that. Nice. As if she wasn't sort of rooting for her already. "I've gotta hand it to you. You don't look like the kind of girl who'd date an ex-con. What was he, one of those prison penpals? Did you get catfished? Facebook profile picture didn't match up with the face?" (Oh, boy, and what a face it was.)

The golden eyes that had been determinedly skimming the pages of the novel _finally_ flicked up to meet hers. Yang ignored the immediate swoop of nerves in the pit of her gut—this was, after all, her very first maybe-a-kidnapping—and beamed at her, resting her chin in her palm, and proffered her empty hand to the other woman. Blake's gaze dropped to it for a fraction of a second before returning to studying Yang. 

"Fangs don't suit your face," she said, finally, and returned to her book. 

_Wow._

Yang dropped her hand to the tabletop, claws tapping an annoyed staccato against the veneer. She waited a beat or two for Blake to say something—anything—else, but nothing came. Finally, she leaned across the table, pushing gingerly on the top of the novel until Blake's eyes came back into view. A slim black brow quirked, but she didn't necessarily look concerned. Annoyed, maybe, sure. But not worried. _Mistake number one,_ Yang thought. 

"First of all, my fangs are a fucking _delight."_ This wasn't necessarily true. She hadn't had the opportunity to get a good, hard look at herself just yet. Mirrors were, as it turned out, surprisingly scarce in the pits of Hell. She also hadn't anticipated Blake being able to see all of her... extra features, but then again, maybe it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. "Secondly, I _know_ you know why I'm here. I didn't just show up for funsies. You're being _weirdly_ zen for someone who clearly knows how this is going to end; ol' Two-Face already told me all about it. So what gives?" 

"It obviously hasn't occurred to you that I might be sick of running from Adam. Maybe I'm ready to just get it over with." Blake was, _incredibly,_ trying to lift the book again. Yang plucked it out of her grasp and watched a shadow instantly pass over the other girl's face. _Ready to get it over with, my ass._ Yang leaned back in her seat, out of Blake's reach, and made a show of scanning the pages that she'd been reading. 

"I gotta hand it to you, Blake, this is some seriously raunchy stuff. Also, whoever wrote it does _not_ know any good synonyms for 'boobs.' Seriously, _'spheres?'_ Oh, man. This lady needs to go to the hospital."

 _"Give it back."_ Blake hadn't moved yet, but she did look like she was weighing the merits of vaulting across the table. Shit, maybe she would. Adam certainly had implied that she'd been the one to jack his face up, after all. Well, no sense in causing a scene. Yang flashed her a vulpine grin and carefully, pointedly, dog-eared the page before sliding the book across the table to her. 

"Dead girls don't usually get so invested in finishing their novels." Blake froze in the middle of reaching for her book. Yang waited, still leaning back in her chair, and eventually the downcast golden eyes raised to meet hers again. It was a shame, she thought. Blake was _unfairly_ pretty—especially the moment just before, all fired up and clearly considering wrestling with a _literal demon—_ but Yang had a sinking feeling that Adam had fallen for the Blake she was seeing now: the one that looked like she'd been thoroughly backed into a corner. "I mean—I can probably tell you exactly how the book ends, and I haven't even read it." 

Blake looked like she might try to defend her taste in literature. Yang held up a hand. 

"Your boyfriend is a dick," she said. Blake blinked, obviously taken aback by the shift in subject, but the response came as quick and reflexive as the _bless you_ after a sneeze: 

"Ex-boyfriend." Well, she clearly didn't have any of the hang-ups that Adam did. That settled it.

"Good for you. Look—if making deals with demons was as straightforward as it sounds, Hell would be half as full, and all those tortured souls would be a _smidge_ too happy for the boss's taste. Adam already fucked things up for himself, being that he's a real jackass, and all, so I'm looking to screw with him a bit." Yang sat up, wings rustling, and leaned across the table. Blake's eyes narrowed—Yang assumed due to close proximity, but no. The romance novel disappeared from the tabletop and into Blake's bag. Yang managed, somehow, not to laugh. 

"Let's make a deal. Bet you can finish your book, at least."

Blake pursed her lips. "But you _just_ said--" 

"Did you summon me?"

"... No." Blake's brow furrowed. "But that doesn't mean anything. You're hardly the first demon I've dealt with. You could turn on me at any second—I might as well just walk up to him under my own power." 

"Blake." Yang rested her chin in her hands, watching as Blake warily sized her up. "You know how long it's been since I was topside? Been around people who aren't screaming bloody murder? Seen daylight? Call me crazy, but I'm not in any rush to head back down there just yet. I _just_ got here. I turn on you, job's done—boom, back to Hell I go. Everybody loses. So." Once again, Yang offered Blake a hand. The other woman looked at it as though it might bite her, but at least she was acknowledging it this time. Progress was progress. "Let's make a deal. No strings. Call it a freebie." 

Blake stared for a moment longer and then... reached for her mug. Yang hit her with her very best long-suffering look as she took a meditatively slow sip of her tea. Blake appeared unaffected by this. "Not until I hear the terms," she said, finally, "because as of right now, this still doesn't seem to end well for me. Your words, not mine." 

Right. Terms. Shit. Yang hadn't actually... come up with any. At least, nothing beyond a basic _Hey, let me hang out on the mortal plane for just a little while longer, maybe?_ Yang rustled her wings unhappily and, for the second time, reluctantly withdrew her hand. "Well," she said, and paused. Blake watched her expectantly over the rim of her mug. "Well," Yang repeated. "It's. I mean... it's a freebie, right? We could talk terms out together. Or something." 

"Rrrright." There was something lurking in Blake's expression that Yang was not particularly keen on. "Okay. So what did you have in mind?"

Mercifully, any response Yang might have had was silenced by the creaking of the door, and the raucous chatter of a herd of high school students making their way into the shop. A pair of boys bringing up the rear of the group were locked in a heated conversation. Even as Yang watched, the talk seemed to be getting more intense; some seriously colorful hand gestures were beginning to make an appearance. 

"... It's gonna get loud in here," she said, slowly, not quite able to tear her eyes away from the two boys. The taller of the pair was already starting to get into his companion's space. "We might wanna take this outside." Then the inevitable: a shove, and shouting from the group as the pair of grappling students stumbled into a (thankfully empty) table. Yang glanced in Blake's direction and found her already staring at her. "... So?" Yang prompted, ignoring the cacophony as the store owner stormed over to shout over the clamoring high schoolers. "Wanna walk and talk?"

Blake glanced past her, watching the nearby fray for a second. "... Was that you?"

"I dunno. Maybe a little. They were already fighting when they came in, to be fair." 

Blake's eyes narrowed. The odd expression was back again. "Walk and talk," she echoed, getting to her feet and shrugging her jacket on. "Let's go." She was outside so quick that Yang might have suspected she was running from her, if the purple gleam lingering on the front step hadn't given her away. Yang shouldered her way through the throng of teenagers and stepped back out into the rain. Blake didn't even spare her a glance—just popped open her umbrella and set off down the sidewalk. Yang hastily covered her head with her wings and half-jogged after her.

Why, she wondered, was Blake suddenly acting like she knew something that Yang didn't?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, last week's episode was... A Lot™! Hopefully tomorrow lends itself to a little less chaos.
> 
> Shout-out to anybody participating in NaNo this month! You are far braver souls than I. Good luck! 
> 
> xo
> 
> \-----
> 
> 11/20 Edit: No chapter this week, guys -- I unexpectedly lost a family member on Monday and haven't been able to bring myself to write since I got the news. I'm tentatively hoping for two chapters next week to make up for it, but we'll see, I guess. Thanks for your support so far, I really appreciate it. <3
> 
> xo


End file.
